Case Study/ VICE Using Market Insights to Launch VICELAND TV V I C E L A N D N A L © Brandwatch.com About VICE VICE is the world’s preeminent youth media company and content FOUNDED creation studio. Launched in 1994, VICE now operates in over 30 countries and distributes its programming to viewers across digital, linear, mobile, film and socials. VICE includes an international network 1994 of digital channels; a weekly and daily news programming partnership with HBO; a television and feature film production studio; a magazine; CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS a record label; an in-house creative services agency; and a newly launched TV network, VICELAND. New York ABOUT VICELAND VICELAND is an international television network owned and programmed by global youth brand, VICE Media. Launched in the US and Canada in February 2016 under the direction of Academy Award- winning writer/director Spike Jonze, the channel has since confirmed it’s plans to launch into 51 new territories throughout 2016 and 2017. To date, VICELAND channels are broadcast in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, France, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. The VICELAND network extends to both linear and digital platforms, creating high quality, original programming produced in-house, as well as commissioned globally and locally. Everything at VICELAND has a reason to exist and a strong perspective. Boasting Emmy Award-nominated shows, the channel has built a reputation for housing culturally relevant content for young people, with strong international perspectives covering music, food, news, technology, sex, fashion and more. VICELAND’s current programming includes Gaycation with Ellen Page; Black Market with Michael K. Williams; Fuck That’s Delicious with Action Bronson; Woman with Gloria Steinem; and Eddie Huang’s Huang’s World. VICE/ Case Study 02 VICE and Brandwatch Following the success of the VICELAND TV launch in the U.S in March 2016, VICE announced that it would launch its VICELAND TV channel in partnership with Sky in the UK and Ireland. Ahead of the September 2016 launch, VICE was seeking to better understand how its core audience of millennials watched TV and engaged with TV show content. Working with Brandwatch, VICE made use of social data to research and evaluate the reaction to the launch of the channel in the US earlier in the year. The findings of this research would be used to inform the tone and content of the marketing plan for the UK launch, potentially impacting editorial strategy, and could be utilized by commercial teams in conversations with advertisers. While VICE has an established editorial strategy, launching a new TV channel was always going to be a different proposition. How do its current audience interact with TV? Do they watch live TV or VOD (video on demand)? Do VICE readers have a dual-screening habit? What kind of programs did they watch? These were just some of the questions VICE wanted to answer. One of the main goals VICE had was to find out how its audiences interacted online when watching V.T Were there specific shows that resonated best at a specific time? Could VICE uncover some data from listening, which potentially influenced its scheduling? These were all end goals that could potentially influence the overall launch of the channel. Using data from Twitter would allow VICE to identify how users view TV, first and foremost whether they watch it live, or using VOD services. Twitter was the first source of data for VICE, because of how the platform works alongside TV. VICE knew that to conduct this research project on Twitter would require the assistance of a powerful social intelligence platform. VICE turned to Brandwatch to help with this research. VICE/ Case Study 03 The Research Methodology Brandwatch doesn’t just have an amazingly powerful platform for accessing and analyzing social data, but also has a dedicated team of specialist analysts ready to conduct bespoke research and provide insightful reporting. The Brandwatch research services team worked with VICE to create a brief that met the key objectives. This approach would provide VICE with the most streamlined and actionable report possible. The data parameters for the report would be: Period measured: 1st June – 31st May 2016 Markets/languages: Posts and engagements from within the UK and US. Author panels were created using Brandwatch Audiences, as well as Query creation to segment: • UK Authors self-identifying as millennials (e.g. “as a millennial I feel…”), mentioning their age (e.g. “It’s my 19th birthday”) or describing a life event commonly associated with individual within the millennial age bracket (“e.g. Studying at university....”). • Two lists of UK and US Authors that had shared VICE content/articles within the analyzed time period. • US authors engaging with VICELAND and its programmes • General UK authors for comparisons. Any similarities/differences between the conversations of existing audiences and the millennial targets would be the source of actionable insight for shaping marketing/content strategy and potentially some editorial content. VICE/ Case Study 04 The Results VICE UK Reader Profiling The results of the report identified the following characteristics around the VICE UK reader. • Likely to be male and from the older end of the millennial segment (25-34 year-olds). • Interested in current political affairs and cultural hobbies such as books, fine arts and technology. • Works within the creative industries overall, and more skewed towards professions in software or journalism than millennials. • The profile ‘likely to be male and from within the millennial segment’ was very accurate and compared with VICE’s own internal personas. “This research effectively matched our own internal insights and traffic data exactly, which set the tone of the report.” TIM GRIMES, PLATFORM MANAGER, VICE. The Potential Viewer of VICELAND The results of the report identified the following characteristics around the viewer of VICELAND: • Strongly skewed towards towards males. • More likely to work in creative industries. • Shows less interest in hobbies that could be perceived as more intellectual, as compared with the core VICE reader, and be more interested in topics such as music, sports, health, fitness and gaming. • UK VICELAND readers more likely than US VICELAND readers to be students. Understanding how the Author Demographics, (general population, millennial and VICE readers) chose their TV viewing was important for VICE. Overall, the patterns of genre preference between the three author demographics were fairly similar, however, VICE readers were less likely to discuss reality shows than both millennials and the general population and more likely to discuss drama shows. This effectively allowed VICE to tailor its strategies to focus on driving conversation around specific shows broadcast at specific times. VICE/ Case Study 05 Identifying the Key Channels where VICE could Explore Established Audiences. Amongst the three audience groups, Brandwatch allowed VICE to identify the most frequently discussed TV shows and channels. Channel 4’s Gogglebox for example, over indexed versus the general population for both millennials and VICE readers, suggesting that these viewers could be both potential and future viewers of VICELAND. From a channel perspective the report established VICE readers were most likely to engage with Comedy Central and Dave, which could ultimately help VICE in a future targeting methods, from an organic and paid perspective. ICE TV CE 4% 4% VICE READERS 47% 30% 9% 6% 2% 3% MILLENNIALS 41% 36% 10% 8% 3% 4% GENERAL 33% 40% 15% 5% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% MTV • ITV2 • E4 • DISNEY • DAVE • COMEDY CENTRAL • ICE TV SHOWS 4% 3% 3% VICE READERS 31% 11% 14% 7% 6% 6% 4% 3% MILLENNIALS 22% 11% 14% 8% 7% 6% 7% 4% GENERAL 21% 14% 13% 10% 7% 6% 5% 5% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% GAME OF THRONES • MATCH OF THE DAY • THE WALKING DEAD • BIG BROTHER • HOLLYOAKS • THE FLASH • THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX • GOGGLEBOX • HOUSE OF CARDS • OTHER • These two charts provide a breakdown of the most discussed TV shows and channels for the three audience groups. TV shows with low overall conversation volumes have been greyed out in the respective chart. Overall, share of voice for TV shows and channels tended to see millennials positioned somewhere between the general public and VICE readers in preference. VICE/ Case Study 06 Memorable Hashtags Hashtags are one of the most important factors when it comes to driving conversations online. The report allowed VICE to identify the largest naturally occurring topics within the TV show conversation. It became apparent amongst all three groups that having a short and memorable hashtag helped group conversations together and drive audience members to interact with each other, for example specifically with CBB (Celebrity Big Brother) and MOTD (Match of the Day). Since the report, VICE has introduced similar hashtags for shows, such as “King of the Road”, or #KOTR. VICE EE IEIALS EE PLAY VIDEO FINALLY GAMEOFTHRONES FIND GOOD CATCH WATCHING NEXT SEASON 6 MOTD2 GREAT TODAY LEGEND POINTS GOAL LIVERPOOL LOVETIME GOT ATLANTIC SEASON FINALE GIVE CHANCE TO WIN SPECIAL FIRST MOTD TWDARROW WATCHING TWD SHOWHATE TOMORROW MOMENT LOVE MOMENT FAV 9PM GAME OF THRONES SEASON 6 PLAY TIME DAY COMING CBB PREMIERTRAILER LOT SHOW HOUSE MOTD2MOTD RUNNING ORDER REMEMBER GREATEST PREMIER LEAGUE BITS SEASON 5 EPISODENEXT TONIGHT AT 10PM 9PM LONG TONIGHTWARNING BBC FOOTBALL LEICESTER WATCH FORGET 10PM PREMIER LEAGUE LEFT GUYS TV NEXT SEASON TONIGHT PRETTY LCFC COMING WAITING SERIES TRIB E4 MISS PEOPLE SERIES WEEK WATCH BBCFOOTBALL FANS LCFC VIDEO 10PMFLASH NEW SERIES CBB SEASON 6 GOT SEASON 6 READY SEASON 6 TEAM JON SNOW MOTD2 CBBGOT ATLANTIC HYPOCRISY EPISODE LCFC The topics clouds above reflect the largest naturally occurring topics for the general public, millennials and VICE readers within retweets of TV show conversation.